Monthly Archives: August 2012

Upcycling Pyjamas

quilting

Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve locked myself in my sewing room today as I was on a mission to make and finish a baby quilt for my best friend’s daughter’s baby today. I bought the pyjamas at a charity shop a while ago with the intention of using the lovely soft flannelette for quilting fabric. I bought the backing, which is a lovely an almost new flannelette sheet from a jumble sale a while ago.

I cut the fabric into 5″ squares and just made a simple repeating pattern. That’s one gift I needed to make off my ‘to do’ list.

I’m really quite proud of it and it’s beautifully soft. I’ll add another photo in the morning when the light is better as it was fading when we took the photo. I’m also quite proud that I managed to make the entire quilt in one day and quilt and edge it.


It has pink and white hearts, a purple and lilac check and white with pink roses. I hope it’s girly enough and it’s durable and practical enough to be washed and washed as needed.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxx


Put a lid on it! Frugal Pies

frugal food, giveaway

Hello Dear Reader,

Thank you for all of the votes for the ‘Made by Froogs’ name for me to sew onto quilts, bags, cushions, toys or anything else I ever make. There is a clear favourite so far and it’s mine too. You’ll have to wait until Sunday when I draw a name out of something ‘hattish’ to see which name I choose. Here’s the link if you want to enter the draw for the bag, which used to be a pinny and some recycled fabric from the scrap store.

I’m in the process of filling up my freezer with cheap but tasty meals and trying to stretch every pound. I know you can buy pies very cheaply, but they are quite honestly lacking in taste, meat and quality. Some of you might be put off making them as the thought of pastry is too time consuming or difficult, where it’s actually very easy. Shortcrust pasty is mixture of half fat to flour. To make the pastry for two big family size pies, I used 16oz of plain flour, 4oz of lard and 4oz of margarine. You can use any kind, I had sunflower marg but any will do, as will butter. You also need a teaspoon of salt. Add the lot to the food processor (FP). It cost 18p to make the pastry for each pie which will certainly help to stretch the budget!

First you will need to turn the flour and fat mixture into bread crumbs by blitzing it for about 15 seconds. I’ve added a clip of the Hairy Bikers making pastry - I don’t use that recipe but you can see the process.I should have embedded the film below but it’s above at the top of this post! I love a bit of Si and Dave!

I use the pulse button for this. I then add a few drips of water at a time until the pastry starts to form lumps and in the end, by adding a drip of cold water at a time, it will form one big lump and there you are - pastry! It’s best to turn this out into a dish and chill for about an hour……………but I never do! I just get on and make what ever I need to make.

Pastry cooks best in a metal pie tin. I have old fashioned enamelled pie tins which I bought in the pannier market in Plymouth years ago but you can find them in any cook shops or Trago if you live in the South West. (Trago should give me a flippin’ discount for the amount of times I mention them!!!) I don’t blind bake or do anything fancy. I just add the pie filling.

I padded out my pie fillings with the addition of some cooked spuds and I used lots of chopped carrots when I made the pie filling recipe can be found here.


If you had just made the pie filling and it was still hot, the pies would take no more than about 20 to 30 minutes to cook in a not oven (200 degrees in my case) but as I’d chilled this overnight and made them the next day, they took almost an hour to cook. There’s nothing worse than a soggy pastry bottom and we like a crisp crust.

I glaze mine with a beaten egg.

Here’s the final results. I don’t advise eating pies too often as they are high in calories but they are a really delicious way of making what is essentially half offal to taste wonderful. Steak and Kidney pies are a total favourite in my family as are meat pies in general. They freeze really well.



Over to you dear reader. Here’s your chance to leave a mini-recipe for others to share with your ideas for savoury pie fillings. What do you put in yours? Also, anyone else going to have a go at making their own pastry? Thanks again for the many many good wishes we received after our wedding and I look forward to hearing from you.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxx

Bag yourself a give away!!!

craft

Hello Dear Reader,

It’s been really windy here today. I’ve been in and out with the washing and up and down the street looking for it when it mostly blew away! Some poor unsuspecting pensioner probably has my ‘holiday knickers’ hanging off their door handle as we speak as I can’t find them!

I’ve actually found some time to use my new sewing machine and love the way I can programme it to sew letters. I’m thinking of a name for my bags and gifts in some kind of ‘Made in England’ sort of way. I like Froogy recycled. I also like Recycled by Froogs and Yoost-abee because it used to be something else.

The bag I made today used to be a button up pinny which I bought in a charity shop for 50p. The pink linen was part of a huge bag of fabric from the Scrap store which worked out to cost me about 25p an item.

I’m giving this bag away! You need to be a follower and leave a comment here saying which of the names you prefer for my bags and gifts.

What name do you prefer? Froogy Recycled? Recycled by Froogs or Yoost-abee?

I’ll run this for the week and put a link in every blog for the rest of the week to link back to this post.


Now over to you. You will need to become a follower if you’re not already and leave a comment stating which name you prefer. I will draw a name out of something hattish on Sunday night and then post it as soon as I can.

I look forward to hearing from you. I’m now off to look for my knickers!

Love Froogs xxxxx

Don’t waste the giblets!

frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

The top of my stove is bubbling away with several pots of yumminess. I have a huge pot of ragu (the home made meat based sauce, not that slimey sugary muck in a jar) and the fillings for three steak and kidney pies and both are on a very long slow simmer. The ragu will be used in a multitude of ways from being the base of cottage pie to being served with pasta. I’ve also made 24 faggots.


I buy six foil dishes, which I use over and over for £1 - I use the lids once for freezing and then just wrap the contents in either cling film or a plastic bag. I use my plastic bags over and over too by washing them and drying them.


As I know you like the recipes, I’ll start with the steak and kidney pie. You can substitute some of the ingredients and bulk this out with chunks of potato, especially if you’re feeding this to children who seem to love chunks of potato in everything! If you looked up the recipe, it will advise you to use half the weight of kidneys to beef. This is the cheaper option where I use the same weight of both - I also add a couple of rashers of smoked streaky bacon for flavour and making it go further.

Ingredients - 500g of stewing beef but I used strips of stir fry beef which were on offer in the three packs of meat for £10. 500g of lambs kidneys. I hold the ‘core’ and snip the meat off around that bit with meat scissors, they are delicate so hold gently. 2 large onions, 1/2 punnet of mushrooms (you can use tinned sliced mushrooms which are cheaper), 2 - 4 slices of bacon, 4 large carrots. Brown sauce (Worcestershire if you’ve got it) stock cube and some instant gravy.Plenty of salt and pepper.

How to -
1. Peel onions and carrots - blitz to small chunks in the food processor or if you don’t have one, stand there for ages chopping them into little bits.
2. Cut beef into small chunks or tip stir fry beef strips into a hot frying pan and brown.
3. Tip beef, onions, carrots, stock cube, squirt of brown sauce into a pan, just cover with water and turn the gas on - and light the gas!
4. Cut up the kidneys and one piece of bacon - I use lambs kidneys which are a bit more expensive, but we like them - toss the kidneys in some flour and add to the frying pan where the bacon pieces are already sizzling.
5. Add to the cooking meat and vegetables, turn the heat right down and simmer very gently for about two hours.
6. Chop other piece of bacon and mushroom and add to the cooking steak and kidney near to the end of the cooking.
7.Simmer for another half an hour.
8. Leave to cool before making into a pie.

I will finish making the pies tomorrow and will show you how I make pastry in the food processor. I don’t buy ready made shortcrust pastry as it’s easy to make and I’ll show you how. Two large meat packed and delicious pies will cost me £6.00 to make and will give us ten portions at 60p a portion and with plenty of veggies will make the meal £1 per person.

Faggots with onion gravy. I used to make faggots when the children were small as I could hide lots of liver! Mine are mainly meat unlike the shop bought variety which are mainly starch. Mine are also low fat and very cheap; they are also utterly delicious.

Ingredients

400g of what ever pork is on offer! If minced pork is cheapest, buy that! Today, I bought six lean pork loins as part of the three packs of meat for £10!
500g of liver - we prefer pig liver as its very cheap - enough for two for supper on its own for 50p. If you like pate, then trust me, you’ll like liver.
2 large onions.
2 sticks of celery.
3 or 4 slices of bread.
Garlic - I used garlic powder
2 tablespoons of dried sage.
Traditionally faggots are made with heart but they are expensive and hard to come by unless you have a friendly butcher who will keep them for you. Pesky tesky never seem to have them but they are often in our local Asda.

How to make faggots. You will need a food processor or a mincer. I use my food processor (FP) all the time.

1. Toast the bread, toss in FP and blitz - add to a very large mixing bowl (size of washing up bowl at least)
2. Cut up pork into cubes - pulse in the FP until minced - add to bowl.
3. Peel onions, cut into 4. Hold the bunch of celery and cut off about 8cm and put into FP - pulse until little chunks, add to the bowl.
4.Rinse the liver, add to the FP and pulse. It will look dreadful but it’s meant too. When you add it to the bowl, you’ll see that it’s little bits. Make sure the pieces are small, especially if you’re hiding them from offal virgins. Add to the bowl.
5.Add garlic, salt, pepper and sage. Roll sleeves up to your armpits and get in that bowl and mix around with your hands. Plenty of mushing around!
6. Form into balls, a bit smaller than a tennis ball, and place in roasting dish of any kind. Roast in a hot oven for around 30 minutes - You will have enough here to make 24 faggots and two are plenty for any adult and one is enough for any child.

Onion gravy - 2 onions, cut off some celery - blitz in the FP, fry in the tiniest amount of oil or butter. Make some instant gravy as you prefer it and add the fried onions and celery. Add to the roasting faggots at the end of cooking and cook for a further 15 minutes until bubbling.

Eat straight away, or allow to cool and cover with lids, foil or cling film and freeze.

Cheap spuds! Potatoes are really expensive so I always have an emergency supply of value instant mash. Tesco don’t stock this any more, but Asda does and they’re 20p. Next time you’re there, get some in! We do eat fresh potatoes if they are reduced or on offer or we’ve grown some our selves.You could also have this with oven chips, which can be cheap or even cous cous. We’re still up to our tits in the stuff we bought for pennies from Approved food!


The faggots cost 25p each. We had frozen cauliflower and broccoli and instant mash which brought our meal to 75p each. I’m feeding three of us at the moment and need to rein in the food budget so the most expensive meal we eat is £1 and most are far under that.We don’t have meat in every meal or even every day. More frugal food tomorrow.

Love Mrs Froogs xxxx


The way we live

cornwall, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Saving money

Hello Dear Reader,

Many, many thanks to everyone who left kind words of congratulations. We really appreciated your good wishes. Today, we walked across Bodmin Moor from Minions to the quarry and back again and were home by nine. As we took our photo on Bodmin Moor this morning, we discussed how one of us never looks our best in photos. Today, it’s DB’s turn! I love him no matter what he looks like in a photo!

Well our lovely day cost us a whole pile of savings which means we’re really going to have to get down on the deep dark frugality to build up our savings again. We live simply any way and we’re going to have to simplify even further.


There will be more using up what’s in the cupboards. A return to batch cooking and storing food to reheat later. A return to making money on ebay and a return to making home made gifts. We’re faced with every day, every frickin’ single day being a no spend day as rising prices mean we have to do with less but pay more for it.

I’ll be sharing all the good deals I can find. Today’s and for a while, if you need to stock up your groceries and need to fill up your car, pesky teskys have their 5p off a litre if you spend over a certain amount. It works out as £1.50 saved off a tank of fuel, not much but it paid for the milk for the week. I stocked up on bread flour and meat as both could drastically increase in price. I’m going to batch cook and make do and mend to my heart’s content.

So, come join me over the next few weeks as I craft and cook my way to £1 gifts and £1 meals. It’s nothing special; it’s just the way we live.

Until tomorrow,

Love Mrs Froogs xxxxx

Wedding Day

love and family


Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve had the loveliest few days and the photos speak for themselves!

Waiting our turn at the registry office.

Lovely daughter

Exchanging vows

Exchanging rings (recycled gold)

Listening to the legal declarations.

Mr and Mrs

Walking to our wedding lunch in a cafe

At the top of Smeaton’s Tower to have our photos taken.

Cake made by my best friend.

Loving our perfect day.

Plymouth where we met, fell in love and lived for thirteen years.


Mr and Mrs with Plymouth Sound in the back ground.

Thanks for coming to my weddingxxxxx

Love Froogs!

No such thing as basic

http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post

Hello Dear Reader,

I’m staying in a basic, cheap or economy hotel or so the ‘brochure’ says. We’d read the reviews and still came as we did so on location and price. You don’t get tea and coffee making facilities so we brought our own along with a flask to take a hot drink with us.

On the first day of our mini break, we brought a day’s worth of picnic with us. On our second day we bought some food at the supermarket take away and had some fabulous French stick ‘sandwiches’.

We’ve walked around lovely old towns ooooing and aaaahing. We’ve sat by the harbour and read.

We know that ‘basic’ hotels offer bed and board but there are things you have to pay extra for. Take your own towels, a kettle, mugs and a few tea bags. Take a couple of your own pillows and you’ll save having to pay for any extras. We also discovered ‘self service’ breakfast which I thought was great as we could eat as much of what we liked and help ourselves to hot drinks. They even had take away cups and foil so you could take your breakfast with you.

I usually self cater on holiday so I don’t think of this as budget but really comfy. Maybe I have low expectations but I’m really happy to stay in the hotel equivalent of Ryan Air and I’m happy to bring the extras they would otherwise charge for.

We’ve had bright and warm, albeit windy, weather here. We love it here and although we don’t have the money for a fancy holiday,we have each other.

Until later,

Love Froogs xx

Making more money

Earning extra money


Hello Dear Reader,

We have more rooms than we need and have rented one out to a lodger in the past. Most of the time, it was OK. We had a few missed rent deadlines but overall, we were paid everything we were due.

Our son lives at home with us. I don’t mind, but in truth, I’ve done ‘mothering’ and now I see him as a grown up who lives in the house with us who we are related to. We also make him pay the market value of the room. I might be his mum but I’m doing him a dis-service if I allow him to live for free. Would I do this no matter what he earned? You bet I would. I didn’t give them money for nothing when they were young and I don’t give them anything now. He pays £65 a week, whether he’s there or not and I expect paying by direct debit.

You can rent a room out tax-free (see link for details) and it’s a great way to bring in an extra income to your home. In September, local schools will be taking placements for trainee teachers who will work in the school as part of their post-graduate training and they will be CRB checked and you can ask for references through the school. You could contact your local schools offering accommodation if you have a room free. The NHS (contact your local university accommodation officers and local training hospitals) also has training places out in the community as training for nurses does not just take place in hospitals. Likewise, the trainees will be CRB checked as they will be working with vulnerable people and in confidential settings. It’s also great if you can just offer Monday to Thursday, four night accommodation to workers away from home

Today will be my last blog until Monday and sorry guys, I’m not telling you why, I don’t tell you everything. Have a great Bank Holiday Weekend and think about renting a room out to earn some extra money!

Until Monday,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

How long does it take a load of laundry to dry?

eco home, Eco issues

Hello Dear Reader.

I own, as you can see, three different laundry drying racks and a whirly-gig round about washing line which you can’t see. On a bright sunny day (what’s one of those?) I hang it on the whirly-gig. On dodgy days (like the ones we seem to have had since the 80’s) I hang it on racks which I can lift and bring indoors if it rains.

Now I don’t own a tumble drier, but when I did, I owned a huge American Whirlpool drier (similar to the Kenmores you can still buy) which matched my huge American Whirlpool washing machine (I sold them both to buy an eco-responsible washing machine that doesn’t use much water or energy). I could strip three beds and wash and dry all the washing in about an hour and have it all back on the beds again. Convenience costs. It costs the planet the most as my purse will recover.


I now consider a 48 hour turn around quite OK. I washed this laundry in the photo above yesterday afternoon and it’s ready to be folded and put away. Last night’s laundry is getting some breeze under a grey sky. It will be drier when I bring it in than when I put it out. If it’s chilly tonight, I’ll light the wood stove and finish drying it there. When I had no wood stove, just leaving it in the house for a few days eventually got it dry.

There are things to remember with indoor drying. Keep your kitchen door and dining room door closed or the smell of food will permeate not only the drying clothes but soft furnishing. Dry your clothes in a draught if possible and try to get them outside. The outdoor air will make your clothes smell better. I lived in the middle of a city for a while and used to dry my washing on roof terrace and being above car level meant that it didn’t smell of traffic fumes.

How long does it take your washing to dry? Is 48 hours acceptable to you?

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

What do you spend at the hairdressers?

Frugal beauty
Yes - I look a twit and I do have hair dye on my face but I put my glasses back on, checked in the mirror and I washed it off!

Hello Dear Reader,

Not being an average woman, I’ve no idea what the average woman spends at the hair dressers. The last time I went to the hair dressers, a trim and semi-permanent colour cost £75. I never went back. I’m always on the hunt now for reasonable hair colourant as some are getting to costing almost £10, which is the total amount I allow allocate to spend on myself per month! I can spend money on sewing machines and second hand fabric to make presents and household items, but I see no need to waste money on my physical self.

So, I colour my own hair and I don’t have it cut more than once every two years.

The colour in the picture looks almost black whereas it’s a dark brown iced chocolate. Not telling the make as I don’t do adverts. I stock up when the shops are doing a two for one, or three for two and keep them and then colour my hair every month.


Now I’ve fought the good fight against the every shade of grey, I’ll see you tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx